As ESPN received criticism for its coverage of the NFL Draft, no one was more bothered than its former NFL analyst, Michael Irvin.
ESPN struggled to keep pace with the shorter first-round clock, and Mike Greenberg had a rough night, making several notable mistakes. But what really bothered Irvin was ESPN’s coverage of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers selecting Miami edge rusher Rueben Bain Jr. with the 15th overall pick.
“Classless and uncalled for – Are you sh***ing me?”
@dallascowboys, @Buccaneers, @DanSileoShow, @forthepeople@CanesFootball alum @michaelirvin88 sounds off on @espn‘s portrayal of @ruebenbainjr on draft night… pic.twitter.com/Es2l7urKpK
“They don’t ever stop trying to somehow, someway assault us,” Irvin ranted during a recent appearance on SportsGrid’s Outspoken with Dan Sileo. “And it was absolutely classless and uncalled for. When Rueben Bain’s name got called, this is one of the greatest moments of your life. You’re gonna look back at this tape all the time and watch that year you got drafted.
“And ESPN, these mother… when he was walking, did you see the infobar? It had his arm length. I said, ‘Are you sh*tting me? You’re supposed to have a highlight here, not a lowlight! Not something that everybody’s been talking about, that has made this man’s value fall down.”
Irvin and Sileo were famously teammates at Miami, so ESPN’s treatment of Bain may have been a little personal for them. But Bain’s arm length was a significant topic of conversation leading up to the NFL Draft, and it continued during ESPN’s coverage of the event. Booger McFarland, Louis Riddick, and Mel Kiper Jr. each spent time on Bain’s arm length while analyzing the selection. And what really seemed to bother Irvin was the fact that ESPN put Bain’s arm length in the chyron as he walked to greet commissioner Roger Goodell, adding they are the “shortest by 1st-Rd edge rusher since 2003.”
“That’s insane. That was just incredible,” Irvin ranted to Sileo. “And I thought it was so classless by them to do that…ESPN put up some garbage.”
Irvin felt ESPN should have kept the focus on Bain’s accomplishments as he enters the next phase of his career. And there were plenty of accomplishments to choose from, including his sacks and helping lead Miami to the national championship game last season.
Maybe ESPN could have chosen a better stat to highlight than Bain’s arm length for the chyron as he walked to the podium. But the topic of his arm length was impossible to ignore. The more egregious coverage of Bain may have occurred on ABC, where the College GameDay crew made a quip about driving fast in Florida.
When Bain’s mother was interviewed on ABC, she noted how excited she was to have her son remain in Florida, claiming the drive to Tampa could be as short as 2.5 hours, depending on how fast you drive. Rece Davis then noted Florida recently voted to increase certain highway speed limits to 80mph, while Desmond Howard chimed in to joke that they’d have to be doing 90mph to make it from Miami to Tampa in two and a half hours.
This conversation about speeding in Florida took place after it was recently revealed that Bain was involved in a 2024 car accident in Miami that led to the death of one passenger. Bain was cited at the time of the accident, but charges were later dropped. The comments about increasing the speed limit in Florida likely had no malicious intent, but the timing was undoubtedly awkward.
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